[NOTE: This page describes our YouTube-focused product. For our more modern standard-notation player, see the features page.]
Soundslice gives you a powerful interface to sync musical information with YouTube videos. This page explains how the interface works. Feel free to contact us any time with questions and suggestions.
Navigation
To pan (“scrub”) across the timeline, use the scrollbar at the bottom or the Ctrl← and Ctrl→ keyboard shortcuts. Drag the timebar at the top for fine-grained panning.To zoom in/out, use the zoom icons in the upper left or Ctrl+ and Ctrl-. Zooming changes the portion of timeline you see in the screen.To move the playhead, click in the timeline or drag the playhead’s diamond.To “jog” the playhead — move it left or right by a tiny bit — use the < and > keys. This can help you find a precise moment in the video.
Selections
To make a selection, drag across the timeline. When you press Play, the video will loop. Resize a selection by dragging an edge, even while the video is playing.To “flip” a selection to the right, hit the F key. This keeps the selection the same size and flips it so that it starts where it used to end. To flip left, use D.
Annotating
Annotations are a way to label specific moments of a video. Use them to create guitar tab, write out chord charts, mark locations of your favorite licks or otherwise add time-based notes to the video.
To annotate, make a selection, then hover over a track or string and click “Annotate.”When existing annotations are in the way, the “Annotate” button will fit the alloted space.
Selecting annotations
To select an annotation, click it. To select multiple locations, hold Shift as you click them.You can quickly navigate between selected annotations using the arrow keys.To select more annotations, use Shift plus any arrow key.To select all of the annotations on a track, click the gear next to the track name and choose “Select all.”
Editing annotations
To rename an annotation, double-click it or press Enter while it’s selected. Type the new label and press Enter to save or Esc to cancel.To delete an annotation, select it and hit the Delete or Backspace key.To resize an annotation, click it to select it, then click and drag its edge.If you’ve selected multiple annotations that share an edge, they’ll all resize together.To resize a selection, click a part of the selection’s edge that doesn’t touch an annotation edge.During resizing, neighboring annotations will be “pushed” as you’d expect.If you resize an annotation such that it fully overlaps another one, the overlapped one will be deleted.
Moving annotations
To move vertically, click an annotation and drag up/down. When moving across tracks, it will automatically change to the correct type.To move horizontally, click an annotation, hold Ctrl, then drag left/right.If you move an annotation into the middle of another one, the other one will be split in two.If you move an annotation such that it completely covers another one, the other one will be deleted.You can move multiple annotations, and all of the above behavior will still apply.You can move annotations up and down with the keyboard. Use Alt plus the up/down arrow keys.
Copying annotations
Soundslice has two ways of copying and pasting annotations: you can either drag or use CtrlC. The dragging technique is described here:
To copy an annotation to another string or track, select it, hold Alt, and drag up/down.To copy an annotation horizontally, select it, hold Alt and Ctrl, then drag left/right.You can copy multiple annotations.
Snapping
When you make a selection, it will “snap” to the nearby annotation edges and measure lines.Disable snapping by holding Shift.Snapping also happens when you move, copy or resize an annotation.
Splitting annotations
To split an annotation into four equally sized annotations, select it and hit Alt and 4. This works for the numbers 2 through 9.If you’ve selected multiple annotations, each of them will be split.
Joining annotations
To join multiple annotations into a single one, select them and hit j. The new annotation’s label will be the same as the first annotation in the joined group.Joining is not allowed if there are any unselected annotations in between the selected ones. This is a light safety precaution.If you’ve selected multiple sets of annotations across different tracks/strings, each group will be joined.
Scaling annotations
Scaling is a way to resize a group of annotations all together. When you do this, the annotations’ lengths will remain in the same proportion to one another.
To scale a group of annotations, select them, then hold Alt and drag either the left or right edge of the selection.
Undo
You can undo any changes you make to annotations or tracks, as long as they’re changes you made in your current editing session. The undo history stretches back to when you loaded the page, and it’s cleared as soon as you leave the page.
To undo, hit CtrlZ. To redo something you just undid, hit ShiftCtrlZ.
